


Composure

by apocalypseQuestioner



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-14 17:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocalypseQuestioner/pseuds/apocalypseQuestioner
Summary: Louis' last memory of Clem is watching her and AJ disappear into the woods, and when the pair fail to turn up at the school, Louis sets out to find her and bring her home-- or die trying.Composure picks up from the events in the barn. Heavy Clouis/Louisentine focus.





	1. Clean Cut

**Author's Note:**

> Originally wrote this for myself, but I figured the world always needs more Louisentine content. 
> 
> I'm not entirely sure how far I'll go with this. I might stop after a few chapters, or I might have this run into an extremely long-term project with 100k+ words more than likely. It's written in first person because, as I said, this was first a relaxed, personal project. I'm not against turning it into third person, but we'll see. 
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy.

The axe lodges in my leg.

No clean cut. No straight through. A flash of red, a rush of air, the feeling of the world itself splitting in two and soaking me in its dry, wet agony.

_You have to kill me._ I mouth the words. Time slips from my hands. How long ago did I say those words? Did I say them at all? I’m sure I did, I could barely see him for the hazy film that coated my eyes, the world a faint blur of rotting colours and smeared light.

_You have to kill me._ Yes. I’m sure I said them. Not for the first time, but the first time I meant it. The words that brought him to tears, the words that triggered tantrums and arguments and the words that I found myself whispering when I was completely alone, like a second-rate actor huddled behind the corner curtain, knowing nothing of what comes next or what comes before but clutching my lines as if they’re all I need.

_You have to kill me._

I said it. I asked him. I watched him lift the axe and dimly wondered if this would have been easier if I taught him otherwise, if I taught him to save the last bullet for himself— in my final moments I thought not of myself, but of _him,_ of what I could have done better, of how I could have better prepared him for this moment.

But that final moment felt so _long,_ like the longest moment of my entire life. I had worried for AJ, I had berated myself one final time for not teaching him the right lessons, I swallowed a wail of anguish over the lost time, the lost years, that I would never see him _grown,_ I would never see him tall, I would never watch him make choices as an adult and wonder—for better or worse—how much of _my_ influence drove him.

And, in the longest moment of my entire life, I thought of Louis.

The want to wail came back, but it was different. AJ was here, I knew what I asked of him would hurt him but he was _here,_ I said my goodbyes, I saw the agony in his round, soft eyes, and in a way that helped. I saw his pain, his hurt, I knew what I was inflicting upon him and it didn’t make it easier, but at least I knew.

How much hurt was I inflicting upon Louis?

I would never know.

I thought of him, I thought of my last memories, I thought of the pain and anger that darkened his eyes at AJ’s choice; would that colour what comes next? In my final moment I sought solace in the thought that AJ wouldn’t be alone, but Tenn . . .

Then, AJ drifted. I thought of Louis alone.

I thought of his face obscured by a rusted, chain fence. I thought of the promise I made him, I thought of every promise I made before, I thought of everyone reunion, I thought of every cheery, playful greeting he gave me, teasing me for the absences in which neither of us knew if we’d return.

I thought of the subtle glimmer of pain in his eyes, the slight shake to his pupils, the unspoken fear that persisted past our reunion.

How much would this hurt him? I could only hope that it wouldn’t. I could only hope vainly that he would blame me for Tenn’s death, not only to spare AJ but to spare Louis from further grief, to spare him from the agonising spasms in your chest whenever you remember, whenever you wake at night with their words ringing in your ears, when years later you find yourself turning your head, inclined towards an empty space, seeking the words of ghosts long departed from this world.

Lee.

_You have to kill me,_ I said, and I watched as AJ lifted the axe high above his head, the world’s smallest executioner. _Lee, are you there? I’m ready. Show me where to go next._

The axe lodges in my leg.

I throw back my head and _scream,_ seeing nothing but blurred colours and smeared shafts of light. Blots of red burst across my vision, pain incarnate, and I scream and scream and _scream_. I scream until my voice cuts out into a ragged gurgle, my throat bubbling with copper.

Did he miss? Did he drop the axe? I search for him with eyes that feel ready to bleed but fail to pick him out amongst the watercolours before me. I can’t see him, I can’t tell, and if he messed up then _please,_ please let him fix it quickly, please kill me, please kill me, _please kill me._

With a sick _squelch_ and a _crunch,_ the sharp pressure lifts from my leg, the axe head fighting against the mangled flesh that greedily sucks at its blade. My head lolls forward in something like relief, and I blearily wonder if this will make it easier, if this will bring my death faster, if—

My vision flickers. Something shifts inside me. My heart—persistent thing that it is—gives an unnatural stutter, a shudder, but in the next moment I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything at all. I can’t see anything. Did it happen? Did he kill me? Am I finally dead?

I lift my head, I search for the dusty floor of the train, I seek out Lee’s warm, crinkled eyes, but when my vision swims into the faintest of focus I only see bales of hay, planks of wood, off-coloured hands—

I look forward. Front and centre.

AJ is there, lifting the axe again, face gleaming with soaking tears—but there’s no shock on his face, no regret in his eyes, no panic or terror, only a steely look of _determination._

_No,_ I mouth, wanting to scream and beg but unsure for what. _No, kill me, do it right, make this stop, Lee is waiting, I’m waiting, do it right, do it right, kill me . . ._

The axe swings down. I close my eyes.

_AJ, Louis, Violet, Ruby, everyone,_ I think, letting my thoughts drift into the great unknown. _Louis, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

Sharp, agonising pain explodes through me. Overwhelming anguish, followed by a jolt of pure terror, enough to stop my heart.

Pressure abates. I drift. My thoughts only this:

_Guide me, Lee. Find me. I’m ready._


	2. Drift

Drifting.

This place, the next.

Somewhere far out.

Somewhere too far to reach. Just out of grasp. Blurry, hovering above the horizon, a distant promise.

Drifting.

In, and out.

In, and out.

In.

. . .

Heat.

Searing, blistering heat.

Not heat, something else, something sharper, something vicious and biting. Fire, flames, the scent of smoke clogging a nose, the billowing smog drifting against a cheek.

Pain, kept outside the self. Agony, lifted and placed aside. A lolled head, closed eyes, an understanding that pain exists somewhere around, somewhere close, in the same place as breath. Two steps forward, outside of skin, distant.

Then, lightning.

A strike reaching _inside,_ the electrifying tip piercing deeper than it should, a burst of blinding, blood-red light behind shut lids. Another jolt of terror, so sudden it restarts a limp heart only to stop it once more.

Tendrils of blistering heat snake through the core of flesh, muscle, veins and bone. It shouldn’t reach this deep. Only in death could it reach this deep.

Death.

_Lee?_

The tendrils dig deeper. The heat drifts.

It all drifts.

I drift.

. . .

Movement.

A jerk forward. A shift. Drifting was smooth.

This is not.

Uneven. Rough. Stop-start.

_The train?_

The train. The train must be struggling to start. Why? It never has before.

The train never _started_ before. It was always moving. It never stopped. It shuddered over rocks and dents, it jolted and jumped and slid around its cargo; scissors and bottles of water, carelessly left upon the floor, would slip and roll until worked into tight corners.

But it was never still. Why would it be? Is something wrong?

_“No, I . . . fuck!”_

AJ’s voice.

Why is here? With me? Impossible. There’s no way. It’s inconceivable.

_“Ugh, no—!”_

AJ’s voice, again, unmistakably his. I try to focus on it, but I can’t find my ears. I can’t feel my body. Surely I must still have one, enough to feel the pinch and push of movement, but I feel more like a ragdoll than anything else. There’s no control. I can’t feel my body but I can’t feel anything else. Where are my thoughts coming from?

I don’t know. I try to focus on AJ’s voice again, but without ears I don’t know where to start. I feel like every piece of me has been shredded into ribbons and scattered across a vast, unknown abyss.

_Lee?_ I think, I ask, my voice trapped in a mental space no matter how much I will it further. I call for him without words, I call for him with a deep-set pining, a yearning from my soul to his, stretching across this terrifying nothingness for the slightest brush of familiarity, because if I am not aboard the train then . . .

Where am I?

I jolt. I don’t have a body, but I shudder forward. For just a second, a pain beyond this world returns to me, blotting out the darkness with a bloody, bright red.

Then, it fades. I begin to drift. A prickle of a memory touches me. A name. _James._

_Did I turn?_ I wonder, dimly. _Is this what it feels like to die?_

I drift completely. Everything fades.

. . .

_“AJ?”_

_“AJ, what happened?”_

_“I can’t see, what happened? What’s wrong?”_

_“AJ?”_

_“Stop askin’ me and help me w’this!”_

_“What happened? What did you do to her?”_

_“I didn’t do anything! I saved her!”_

Voices. Too many. All at once. Indistinguishable.

Static, blank noise. I don’t know who they are. They’re talking to AJ. How?

Why?

I died. I died, and I’m not on the train yet, but surely I will be soon. How is AJ with me? AJ isn’t dead, he can’t be, if AJ died then surely whatever is left of me would cease to exist, too.

Who are the voices? If they’re talking near me, around me, about me, they must be dead, too. Brody? Marlon? Tenn? Mitch?

Luke? Sarah? Jane? Christa? Omid?

Kenny? Katjaa? Duck?

Lee?

_“Wh— oh, fuck, oh god, where’s her leg?”_

My leg?

_“I burned it, to make the bleeding stop. Like she taught me.”_

_“Why?!”_

Huh.

Would I carry my bite into whatever awaits me next? My injuries? I barely thought about it, but I always assumed I would leave it all behind. Whenever I was on the train I carried my scars, but never _wounds._

Wait. Did they say _where_ is my leg?

Below my knee, obviously. Minerva’s axe mangled it, but not beyond recognition. The bite was small, contained, so—

_“I’ll carry her. It’ll be faster.”_

_“Lou—”_

_“Get out of my way, Ruby!”_

A pause. Then, _warmth._

I flinch with an unfelt body. The heat is not inside, the heat is not carved into a diamond-point lightning strike, complete with licking tip that buries into muscle and flesh never meant to be touched, but for a moment it feels like it is. Without a body, without sight, with being left to drift in an unknown abyss and knowing only pain _all_ sensation feels like pain, even familiar warmth tucked where my back should be, behind where the crook of my knees should be.

_“Clem?”_ asks a soft voice, right next to where my ears should be. _“It’s Louis, Clem. Y-You’re gonna be alright, I’ve got you.”_

Louis?

No, there’s no way. There’s no way that AJ _and_ Louis are here, AJ put an axe into my head and I _felt_ it. I felt the disconnection, I felt myself fall away from this world, I should be on the train with Lee, nobody else should have died, they _can’t_ be dead.

_“Why can’t she hear me?”_

_“She isn’t awake, Louis. She’s in shock.”_

I jolt. I’m moving. Up and down, rhythmically.

Louis.

_Louis._

I know his voice, I hear it, I hear the raw agony and I hear the raw _terror,_ I hear the flatness and it inspires a sort of terror in me, too. I wait in the silence of nothingness for a joke, a jab, a playful tease, but there’s nothing. There’s nothing at all. Only the echoes of his beautiful, angelic voice, wracked in pain.

Wherever I am, wherever I exist, if this moment is real or imagined it does not matter—I cannot stomach the sound of an angel in agony.

My mind claws and screams with a sudden fervour, desperately trying to rip free of whatever abyss envelopes me and keeps me bodyless; but there’s no strength left in me, there’s nothing at all, only a slow drifting that sets the teeth I used to have on edge. If I haven’t yet passed, if I exist in the in-between, if I have a chance to say goodbye—

I draw a breath. I feel it ghost past suddenly found lips, billowing through my throat and swelling my lungs. I don’t know if I have ribs or a chest, but I draw a breath and I feel lips, I feel eyes, I feel something cold against my cheeks, I feel a heat against me, my back, my side, my legs.

More cold. Something bites at my face. Freezing and pointed.

I draw another shaky breath. I can faintly feel my eyes, and when I drift closer to the surface I try to open them. My lids feel sore, stiff, unwilling to co-operate, but I manage to force them open the slightest crack, enough to filter in a dim, blurry light.

Not that I can make sense of anything. It’s not even colours and shapes. Just light. Dim, dull light.

“Lou . . . is?” I croak. It burns my throat. It feels like it should hurt, but no pain comes.

We stop moving. I take another breath and feel it sap away at my energy. My body wants to drift, but I fight to keep us at the surface.

“C-Clem?” Louis stammers. “Oh, Clem! You can hear me? Of course you can, you said my name, there’s no one else here called Louis— Clem, you’ll be okay, honey, we’re almost home.”

Honey. That’s new.

More prickles of cold pelt my cheeks. I try to flinch away, but I’m barely at the surface. With each passing second, the unavoidable drifting trickles back in, pulling me away.

Louis’ voice keeps me with him. Barely. “Ruby, she’s shivering!”

“M-M’cold . . .” I manage to say, my throat starting to swell with the numb heat.

“Cold?” Louis echoes. “You’re shivering because of the rain? After everything, Clem, and the cold is bothering you? You have your leg—”

But I don’t hear the rest.

His voice is a hollow imitation of what I remember. It threatens to break apart at the seams with anxiety; there’s no genuine twang of playful teasing, but even his weakest attempt at humour soothes me in some way.

I focus on the feeling of heat against my side. I can’t feel the rest of my body, but my drifting mind feels oddly placated. _He’s carrying me,_ I realise, putting it all together. _Home? To bury me?_

I focus on the heat against my side. I can’t feel my body, but the quiet, placated feeling in my mind tells me his skin must be against mine. I’m drifting again, fading from the surface, the dim light already gone from my eyes.

“W-Wait, Clem, no, come back, wake up, don’t go—!”

Louis’ voice. It’s too far away. Too distant.

I’m too far gone.

One by one, it all fades. The feeling of my lips, my throat, my eyes and my lungs. In a final second, all I know is the heat against my side.

His arms around me. Skin against skin.

Then, that too fades. Slowly, and all at once.

I drift.


	3. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kind comments you've left on Composure! I was fairly nervous to post Composure in the first place, since I mainly write my own original content, and I haven't touched fanfiction since I was 14-- but you've all been so lovely. Thank you.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. I do believe I'm going to continue to write Composure, and I already have some long-term plot ideas cooking up. So, stick around. This'll be a long ride. Hopefully.
> 
> Anyways. Thank you again for your kindness and support. Enjoy the chapter!

Drifting.

Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifting.

Drifting, so far out, too far out.

Drifting, away, far from home.

Home?

. . .

The tide surges forward. It carries me with it, useless and lifeless. I want to fight it. I want to keep drifting. I wasn’t giving up, I had just made peace with the inevitable. I was bitten—I remembered that much, even if I could no longer feel the burn in my leg—and that was that, my time was up.

I had kept moving forward, for as long as my body held me up. I clambered up rocks, I dragged my limp leg, I sunk my knife into the tough, rotting skulls of a few final walkers. I found the barn, we forced our way in, I braced the door and that was that.

I hadn’t given up when I could have given up. I kept moving forward, for as long as I could. But I got bit, and what could I do with that? The next step of not giving up was death, but it was not a passive death. I died so I might protect the one I loved more than anything else, more than anyone else.

More than life itself.

AJ.

Besides, is it so wrong to want to drift? I’m tired, drained, and the feeling of being weightless is addicting. I never gave up, I never stopped moving, I swallowed it all and kept finding the strength to put one foot in front of the other; I braved winds, rains, snow, drought, starvation, torture, pain, terror—I braved it all, endlessly, my entire life.

If I hadn’t been bit, I would continue to do so. Without question.

But I’ve been bit, so is it wrong to want to drift?

To wait for Lee to find me?

The tide surges forward, bubbling at the dark banks of the abyss, spitting my ragdoll-limp body out onto the dry shore. Without the dark waters swelling around me my skin begins to crack and splinter, razor-sharp beads of sand working their way through the ravines, scraping me from the inside.

I shudder out a gasp. My eyes fly open.

I’m moving. Or, I think I am. I don’t know what I’m looking at but a blurry mesh of colour swims before me, spinning with unfocused edges. It doesn’t look like the roof of the train carriage, it doesn’t _feel_ like it, but where else could I be? Where else will Lee find me?

Somebody is screaming. Somebody far, far away. I strain to recognise the cry but the noise grows fainter when I try.

_“Oh, god, why is she screaming?! You’re hurting her, Ruby!”_

_“No, I’m cleanin’ her wound! It’ll get infected otherwise. Hold her down, Louis.”_

_“I wanna help!”_

_“You’ll just get in the way, AJ.”_

_“No I won’t!”_

_“Louis, I told you to hold her down!”_

Pressure squeezes the tops of my arm, so tight I try to wrench away. Pressure pushes down on my chest, too, but with my arms pinned I can’t reach to shove it off me. I open my mouth to snap or demand that I be let go of, but my throat is full of noise.

I realise that I’m the one screaming.

Pain explodes in my head, blotting my vision with red.

Something is _burning,_ my leg is on fire and I can’t breathe past it, I can’t breathe past my screaming but I can’t stop that either; the pain bubbles in my chest and floods from my lips and I can’t breathe or see or do anything but _scream_.

It hurts to scream, it adds to the pain, my throat is sore and full of copper but my leg hurts worse. I surge forward, just as the tide did, but there’s that solid weight on my chest, keeping me still, keeping a grip on my arms and rendering me immobile.

“C-Clem, please, don’t move—”

“Get it OFF!” I howl, curling my fingers into claws against the bed beneath me. “Get it off, get it off, it hurts, my leg—”

My screams dissolve into sobs. My face feels wet, but the tears bite like acid against my cheeks. They come all at once, like a waterfall, the red haze over my vision making them feel like blood.

I throw myself forward again, fighting the weight that holds me down. I earn an inch, barely, I try to reach out to find my leg and claw it from me, rip the injury from my flesh, dig my fingers into my bone to find the infection and tear it off—

“Clem, stay still!” demands another voice, a younger voice, a voice I could never forget.

AJ. He’s here. Wherever we are, he’s here. Is that good or bad? I feel relief, the slightest amount, but should I?

Another weight presses on top of me. It’s nothing I couldn’t push away. But it feels familiar.

I peer open my eyes, pathetic sobs bubbling from my dry lips. I see AJ, barely, all blurry and indistinct but at my side, his small body thrown over my chest, his eyes just as determined and sure as before.

“AJ . . .” I blubber. “AJ, I told you, I told you to kill me . . .”

Pain breaks the confidence in his small, warm eyes. AJ stares at me with that pain for a moment, before shaking his head, eyes steeling over.

“Just stay still, Clem,” AJ firmly says. “Y-You said you trusted me, so I made the call.”

I stare blearily at him. The call to what? Keep me alive? Despite my bite?

“N-Not your call to make,” I slur, my jaw trembling. “I was bitten, you know wh-what happens—”

“You can live without a leg,” AJ says. “But I can’t live without you!”

_I can live without a leg?_

I stare blankly at AJ. Then, slowly, I roll my head to the side, I stare down at my body, I see dark arms and a familiar sloping shoulders, a head of dreads, but I look lower, I look at my leg.

The half of it that’s left.

I stare at the bloody stump, the empty space where my leg should occupy. I feel the internal glitch in my brain as I try to process the stump, the space, because I can still feel the bite, the axe wound, the pain that threatens to split my skull in two—

“Clem—”

Dizziness overtakes me. I scream for a few more seconds before unconsciousness hits me like a truck.

* * *

I call his name. I don’t expect an answer.

Still, I call his name, and I let the empty air that follows wound me.

I’d been so close, after all. So close.

. . .

My eyes flutter. Murky light stings them.

I draw a slow breath, trying to work it past a pressure settled over my chest. My throat is as dry as an old creek, sore as if I’d swallowed razors and let them slice it up. I wasn’t screaming anymore, and I didn’t know if I ever could again.

I squeeze my eyes shut, wanting after that painless drifting; the numb of the abyss was comforting, in a way, it held endless questions and wondering but it didn’t hold any pain. But, even when I try, I can’t find it again. When I close my eyes I see only a red-tinged dark, the terrible tiredness clinging fast to my bones.

Bones that I feel. Eyes, that I feel.

Reluctantly, I open my eyes, allowing the muddy light to break through. I take my time, trying to make sense of what I see; at first only a fuzzy mix of greys, but slowly I pick out the hatching metal of a bare bedframe, something red-and-white peeking at the corner of my vision.

I know where I am. I’m home. I’m in my bed, staring up at the same sight I’ve seen for months.

But how did I get here?

I draw another breath, lowering my gaze to my chest, to find whatever weight is making it difficult.

I see Louis.

He’s knelt beside my bed, his upper body thrown over mine, his arms stretched out awkwardly to hold both my wrists. I can’t see his face for how it’s buried into my shirt, only his hair.

I watch his body slowly rise and fall with my next breath. He looks different, somehow, but I don’t have the energy to scan his body up-and-down to find out why. I resort instead to watching him, wondering if he’s asleep or unaware that I’m awake.

After a minute or so, I notice the colour of his shirt. Green-grey, with faint smears of red.

He isn’t wearing his jacket.

I’ve never seen him without it, not in all the time I’ve spent at Ericson’s. In fact, whenever I thought of him, the mental image conjured up always involved him pulling on the corners of his lapel, adjusting it as if it didn’t sit correctly.

Louis lifts his head before I can wonder what happened to it.

His head snaps towards me, his eyes falling on mine, dry and red-rimmed. As sore as my throat feels.

I stare back at him, barely able to hold his gaze. Even breathing takes too much energy from me.

“Clem,” he breathes, his voice as an angelic as anything, even at the end of everything. Then, like the tide, he surges forward and envelopes me in his arms.

I wish I had the strength to lift my own but settle for weakly burying my face into his neck, letting his scent wash over me and dizzy my head. I don’t realise how cold I am until his warmth is all around me, until _he_ is all around me, his hair brushing against my face, his lips just below my ear.

“Clem,” he repeats, a reverent whisper. “Oh, Clem, Clementine, you’re here, you’re alive . . .”

It’s easier to breathe without his weight on my chest, but I still miss it. I take in lungfuls of his scent, over and over, letting it blot out all the pain.

“I-I’m alive,” I manage to say, shaky in my own disbelief and . . . and in my what? _Disappointment?_ “O-Of course I am, Louis, you think I’d . . . I’d leave you that easy?”

Louis draws back, his beautiful, brown eyes on mine. They brim with pain, with agony, with unspoken torment. He doesn’t speak.

“What?” I shudder the words out, already so exhausted from just a few minutes awake that I feel ready to pass out. “N-No jokes?”

“Jokes?” Louis echoes, eyes narrowing. “I almost lost you, Clementine. I thought you were _dead._ ”

The anguish in his eyes takes on a new meaning. I can scarcely remember anything at all past this moment, but hadn’t I wished that he would be spared from the grief of my loss? I hoped he would be angry at me, that he would blame me, that it would help him move on and live a happy life without me . . .

“W-Well, so did I, for a little while,” I whisper, fighting my closing lids. “Not entirely sure . . . why I’m not, actually . . .”

“AJ,” Louis murmurs, his eyes still on mine. “He cut— he, err, saved you.”

AJ. My eyes widen.

I jolt forward in a panic, but Louis is quick to lean over me, looping his long fingers around my wrist and firmly pressing me down.

“Nuh-uh, no moving,” he says, with the softest touch of his old teasing. “Strict orders from Ruby, and since I’ve been ignoring every other order she’s been giving me, I’m following this one.”

Louis pauses, before inclining his head to the side. “AJ is over there. He’s okay.”

I turn my head to the opposite side of the room, my panic fading when I see the small, curled shape of AJ, fast asleep on his bed. I watch the gentle rise and fall of his chest, timing my own breathing with it.

“He hasn’t been sleeping much,” Louis murmurs, turning his gaze to watch AJ too. “Not that he’s usually such a massive sleeper, but you know. He’s been watching over you. Gave up patrollin’, I guess.”

AJ shifts in his sleep, tiny fingers flexing into a small fist. Out for the count, it seems, even our voices unable to disturb his rest.

“And you?” I whisper, turning back to Louis.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” I murmur. “You look . . .”

I pause. I wait for Louis to interject, to joke, to tease and poke but he’s silent.

“Tired,” I say, fighting my heavy lids again. “When’s the last time you slept, Lou?”

Louis forces a smile, one that falls flat and doesn’t touch his eyes. “Oh, you know . . . here and there. Weren’t you the one who woke me up?”

“Your eyes say otherwise.”

The smile fades. Louis looks away, and my weak heart gives an uneven stutter. His eyes—as red as they are—hold me afloat, keep me lucid, ground me amongst the rubble.

“I . . .” Louis whispers, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Clem, I thought I lost you. Like, _really._ Even when we split up on the boat, and I was scared something would happen, it was . . . different. But even then, walking away from you felt like . . . like tearing my heart in two and hoping I’d see it again. Then, when I saw you again, I felt . . . whole. I felt _complete._ In that moment, when you hugged me, and I felt my heart all together again? I knew, Clem . . . I knew I’d never feel whole unless you were with me.”

“And then, I climbed that stupid fence,” Louis’ voice drops into an uncharacteristic hiss, low and frustrated. “And I had to watch you walk away, and I knew I had to trust you, but it felt so _wrong._ Like, _really_ wrong. Unnatural! I told myself I would see you again, obviously, because you’re just . . . so strong, Clem. You’re so tough. Like, crazy, supernatural levels of tough. Which is sorta funny, because you’re so _tiny,_ but you could probably fight like a hundred bears and—”

“Lou.”

“Right, right, my _point_ is, I had to watch you walk away,” he shakes his head. “I was watching half of my heart just walk away, and suddenly I realised I couldn’t see my life without you. I couldn’t imagine _not_ seeing you again, and I told myself that meant you’d be okay, but when we all met up at the school and you and AJ weren’t there . . .”

“Ruby came with me,” Louis murmurs. “Violet, too. Ruby tried to stop her, and I guess I should have too, but I didn’t even _know_ they were there. There must have been walkers in the way, I must’ve killed them, but I don’t remember. I just remember running, running until my legs _burned,_ and then I saw AJ, with you, in the wheelbarrow.”

“You were limp, you were covered in blood, your . . . your leg—”

Louis swallows.

“I thought you were dead,” he says. “I saw your limp body, and I thought you were dead. You had the other half of my heart, and wherever you went, you took it with you. I thought of having to go home without you, I thought of the first day without you there, your empty room—”

“Day-by-day,” I whisper. “I thought that’s how you took things?”

Louis shakes his head.

“I carried you home. Ruby tried to stop me. Another order I ignored. I carried you home, and I didn’t know if . . . I didn’t know if I was carrying your _corpse,_ Clem, or _you._ You were out, gone, you were barely even breathing. You were so _pale._ ”

“Then, you spoke,” Louis murmurs. “You said my name. I didn’t know if I was dreaming—which isn’t a new thought, admittedly, I’m still a little convinced that you saying you _like_ like me was just a dream—but there was a _chance,_ there was a chance you weren’t just some crazy hallucination my stupid brain cooked up to keep me moving, there was a chance I would get to hear your voice again, a chance I could see your smile, a chance I could make you laugh, a chance that I . . . that I d-didn’t have to live without you.”

Louis’ voice cracks. He looks away, but not before I see the glimmer of tears well in his tired eyes.

“Did any of that make sense? Probably not,” he laughs, a little too high-pitched, a little too anxious. “You don’t need to tell me, it barely all makes sense to me. I just . . . I thought I lost you, Clementine. I’m never, _ever_ leaving your side again. I’m not getting in any carts without you, I’m not jumping any fences, I’m staying by your side until you order me away—which, of course, you _can_ do, if you want to, but I’m offering up a lifetime of servitude, which is quite the offer.”

I close my eyes, letting Louis’ words wash over me.

It hurts to be apart from his eyes, but his sudden speech is almost too much—not that I’d ever ask for it to stop, not that I wish I never heard it, but because every part of me _aches,_ because even small, shallow breath saps away at my energy.

“Louis?” I whisper, peering my eyes open as much as I can.

His warm, dark eyes are waiting for me, still wet with faint tears. He looks at me, expectant.

“Here,” I breathe. “Come here.”

Louis looks at me, this time faintly puzzled, but he shuffles forward. "Yeah?"

“Closer.”

He furrows his eyebrows at me.

“Please?” I murmur. “Just . . . a bit closer.”

Louis closes the distance between us, letting go of my wrists—seemingly assuming I’m past the desire to sit upright—and stilling with his head close to mine.

With my final reserve of energy, I lean my head forward, my lips finding his.

It’s barely a kiss. Louis’ lips are warm and I don’t dare to think about how dry mine must be for all my screaming—but I don’t care, I don’t care that I don’t have the energy to move my lips against his, I only care that his lips are against mine, warm and soft and somehow the perfect soothe to every ache.

If taken by surprise or merely understanding, he doesn’t push for something more active. His lips move once against mine before stilling, and I hold there for as long as my energy allows me. I drink in his scent, his warmth, the mere act of our gentle, weak kiss.

I sink back, finally, too exhausted. It takes everything I have to keep breathing, to summon my faint, barely-there voice.

“Not servitude,” I murmur.

Louis stares back at me, and I dimly feel the urge to smile at the faintest track of shock in his eyes. A muted expression, really, compared to how he usually looks, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him _not_ look surprised after a kiss.

“Are you sure, Queen Clem?” Louis tries to tease, but even in my state I know his heart isn’t truly with it.

“Perfectly sure,” I breathe. “But, I’m not . . . I-I’m not sending you away.”

“No?”

“No,” I draw a slow, deep breath, giving a minuscule shake of my head. “How about . . . partners?”

Louis reaches out, and my eyes drift shut as he gently tucks a curl of hair behind my ear. Too late, I realise that with my eyes closed I have no chance of forcing them back open, not with how heavy my body feels.

“Partners,” Louis echoes, as if tasting the word on his tongue. “I think I can do that.”

I sigh, low and tired; I wish it would sound more content, more relieved, but my consciousness begins to blur at the edges, exhaustion lapping in like a tide to carry me away.

“Wait, are you . . . you’re just falling asleep, right?” Louis’ anxious voice keeps me awake, barely. “You’re not like, passing out? Passing to the over side? Leaving me forever?”

“Fallin’ asleep,” I mumble. “Tired.”

There’s a pause. I remember something.

“Where’s your . . . where’s your jacket?” I mumble, fighting the urge to drift that I had wanted after earlier.

“C’mon, Clem. Your bed isn’t _that_ comfortable.”

I crack open my eyes a slither. I can’t make him out from all the blurry colours, but he seems to read my confusion.

“You were cold,” Louis says, and I feel dexterous fingertips returning to my temple, carefully brushing another stray curl behind my ear. “So, I wrapped you in it. It’s still behind you. Good thing you’re so small, eh?”

“M’not . . .”

“Yes, you are, and it’s _adorable_.”

I huff a breath.

“You can sleep, Clem. I’ll still be here when you wake up. Just . . . don’t be gone for too long.”

“You should too,” I slur. “You’re tired . . .”

“I’m not leaving you, Clem.”

His voice hardens, and I cling to every word to keep me at the surface. “Then, don’t . . . my bed’s big enough . . . for us both . . .”

Louis pauses. The silence only loosens my grip on consciousness.

“Are you sure?”

“M’sure,” I mumble. “Don’t want you . . . to go, either . . .”

The bed dips lightly at my side. I worry that my limp, numb body might roll into it, but it’s irrational—the dip isn’t deep enough for that, and after a second the empty space at my side is filled with _heat,_ with a familiar comfort that makes my thin blood sing.

Louis’ side presses against mine. He places a gentle kiss to my cheek, his nose brushing against my temple.

“Sleep, my darling Clementine,” he whispers, his lips to my ear. “Sweet dreams. For the sweetest, dream of me.”

With his voice still casting warm shadows in my mind, I let go. I drift.

But the warmth of Louis by my side, persists.


End file.
